Microfilm: a film bearing a photographic record on a reduced scale of printed or other graphic matter.
We understand that microfilm and microfiche are not the most exciting storage mediums. However, even in the modern world, archives of these formats are still critical for business, government, and research.
In today’s Digital Age, we store files in the Cloud or another digital database. Before the modern world, record keepers needed a system to store critical information. When paper files became too voluminous, a compact medium was required.
A medium created in the late 1800s, microfilm stores information from paper by condensing its physical size onto film, thus creating the smallest storage footprint possible. Documents would be photographed sequentially, at a specific reduction ratio, and spooled onto a reel that could be over 100’ long.
Microfilm comes in two sizes, 16mm and 35mm. 16mm is used mainly for records, legal, permits, and government documents. On the other hand, 35mm is used chiefly for newspaper archives.
Besides microfilm, other micro-type media have been developed over the years, the largest being microfiche. Microfiche is a flat sheet of film that contains many rows and columns of documents. Many automotive and other heavy-duty manufacturing companies used microfiche for user manuals instead of providing volumes of paper books.
Additional micro-types include jacketed microfiche, COM microfiche, Ultrafiche, and aperture cards. Information stored on these types of film are often building plans, permits, court filings, engineering drawings, police reports, bank statements, and much more.
Before computers dominated the business world, when a records manager needed to retrieve information, they would first reference the index to determine which roll to pull, retrieve the microfilm reel from the microfilm cabinet, take it to a designated microfilm reader, and access the required page or pages. Before the introduction of digital microfilm readers, the information would have to be printed to take with you.
Outside of business documents, microfilm is extremely important for archiving our history through microfilm archives of newspapers and magazines. Most small-town public libraries are the lone source of their area’s history, making access to these precious documents vital to researchers and those wanting to discover their history.
Easy access is essential to the use of microfilm. Early microfilm reader models were challenging to work with as the different formats and reduction ratios would require different lenses, which were very expensive. A strong lamp (often very hot) would illuminate the film, pass the image through the lens, bounce it off a few mirrors, and display it on a screen. If one of the lenses broke it would have to be replaced or that film would be inaccessible.
Today, we have the modern microfilm scanner, the ViewScan 4 from ST Imaging. Incorporating digital image capture technology, multiple expensive lenses are no longer required. The ViewScan 4’s single lens focuses the image onto a small image sensor, similar to the ones on digital cameras.
Not only is the capture critical, but the software is just as essential. The ViewScan’s PerfectView software makes working with microfilm simple. The color-coded Graphical User Interface guides users through their session.
Blue for Browse. Scroll through the film using the software’s virtual buttons or the scanner’s physical buttons. Once you find the information, simply capture it by using anchor points or ST Imaging’s Scissor-Cut Cropping.
Orange is for Adjustments. Not all microfilms were captured under the best conditions, particularly early microfilm. While we can’t change the quality of the image on the film, we can use digital enhancements to bring out as much information as possible. Adjusting Contrast, Brightness, and Sharpness can all assist in making the best digital scan. Other Adjustments include redacting information, adding notes, highlighting, combining multiple scans, and more.
Green is for Sharing. Here, you will choose what file type you want to save your scans as. Those include PDF, JPEG, GIF, and TIFF, just to name a few. You will also choose a destination for the scan: a networked folder, a USB drive, an email, or you can choose to print. OCR is also available at this stage.
Microfilm has a long history and a shelf-life of up to 500 years if stored properly. This is why it has been the chosen medium for long-term critical data storage. It does not require the regular updates so common in today’s computer-based environment.
To learn more about ST Imaging’s ViewScan 4, visit www.stimaging.com for brochures and videos. Come back next month for Microfilm 201, where we discuss the proper steps in converting a microfilm archive to a searchable digital archive.
